NATO Romania

Great historic achievements
Since the end of WWII, US, Canada and the Europeans partners, working together in NATO or EU, succeeded not only to defeat USSR and to preserve peace, prosperity  and democracy for their countries but they also help their former enemies to enjoy peace ,prosperity and democracy and to rejoin the Western world. More than that working together, former enemies in the past, now allies and partners, they were able to stabilize the very serious security situation from the Balkans.

Common sense-the same set of values, threats and forces
NATO and EU are both institutions belonging to the West. They represent the “world closest community”  and more they represent “a security community.”  They shared a common collective identity, they share a very strong economic interdependence, creating substantial interests in each other’s well-being and use the same kind of institutions to manage the domestic or the international situation. They share the same values, face the same threats and they share the same set of forces (resources) to respond to these threats.  Looking around the world there is no other ally that brings so much to the table of the other one. The fact that 19 countries are members in the both organization make them organically linked. NATO cannot survive without EU and EU cannot survive without NATO. And if we look from a comparative perspective at the US Security Strategy and at the EU Security Strategy  we will see that the both entities face the same dangers or challenges.

Strategic sense - sustainable Euro-Atlantic relations
During the Cold War, European defence was synonymous with Atlantic defence and the existence of Soviet Union played a very disciplinary role. Today not only the Americans but also the Europeans feel free to look for alternative scenarios and solutions for promoting their own interest complementing or even competing with each other. But on the long term such approach could be a strategic mistake because many times Americans scholars like Brzezinski or Europeans like Emanuel Todd underlined that “so long as Europe and Japan are satisfied with American leadership, the empire is invulnerable.  The very intense years of globalization produced also strong waves of anti-globalization and the most visible prove is the 911 terrorist attack. The attempt of US to respond to this very serious challenge in a unilateral way affected dramatically the legitimacy of his acts.
In the future European defence policies are likely to be increasingly made within a European framework and the recent approved European Constitution is only a prove in this respect. On the other hand, many East Europeans are enamoured with Article 5 of NATO and they see US as a guarantee of reliability of the Washington Treaty. This will require NATO and the EU to coordinate their security policies and priorities more closely. And more than that US will need to develop a stronger security relationship with the EU  .The danger not to do so for both organizations is to big because ”if they fail to do so, Europe and the US will drift further apart.”  
Perhaps we need a new kind of grand bargain between the US and Europe or maybe the partial complementarities between European Security Strategy and US Strategy is enough. What is important is the list of security priorities to be the same and to include Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, terrorism and proliferation but also the Arab-Israeli conflict, supporting multilateral institutions, global warming. EU/US support to build up a viable Israel-Palestinian peace process could just make the difference between having or  not having  peace .
And last but not least together NATO and EU can manage future possible security risks which are not so visible today but who are much more dangerous namely regional tensions and conflict involving countries possessing nuclear weapons:
-    China-Taiwan
-    India-Pakistan
-    social and political destabilization of Pakistan.
Neither NATO, nor Europe can manage efficiently such a situation or can mobilize international community in doing so.